


The Godking

by Sekah



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Jotunn!Loki, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:30:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sekah/pseuds/Sekah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki, the Jotun prince, leads a charmed life in the icy stronghold of Utgard. When his father's plot to regain Jotunheim's Casket causes the death of Balder, an Asgardian prince, Laufey gives his halfbreed son to Asgard as a token of recompense. Averting a war, he damns Loki. Pairing: Thorki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Land of Snow and Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a common misconception that Aleut/Eskimo language has many more words for snow than, say, English. In truth, this is because of the structure of their language, which enables one to meld root words into longer and more complex words and ideas. So, in that same vein, I'm going to be forming a lot of snow- or ice-based compound words for Jotnar culture, because languages are often created out of what they're surrounded by, and I'm too big into cultural relativism to buy Asgard's spiel about Jotunheim being desolate and Asgard being innately superior.
> 
> Also, later in this story Loki is not going to know some things about Asgard, and is going to be aversely affected by aspects of the culture/climate, because I'm sick of stories where he grows up in Jotunheim, never leaves, comes to Asgard, and settles right in without the slightest sign of culture shock, excepting the occasional bigot he has to deal with and perhaps some mention of how he doesn't like the food. Oh, and the bigot is always a throw-away character, and always considered exceptionally awful (instead of working within a larger force of oppression), unless it's Thor or another canon character, and then it's alright, guys, it's Thor! Right? Right?
> 
> Well, long story short, I'm going to be injecting some reality in this trope, so be prepared.

This procession, Loki reflected, was painfully, unbearably slow. He understood the use of it, of course: the census that his sire's agents conducted in each village they passed; Laufey's gift to the bumpkins of catching a glimpse of royalty, to keep their awe too great for the annoyance of a peasant revolt; the inspection and upkeep of the roads (to list but a few advantages).

It did little to stem the cultivated boredom that sunk into his bones, watching the unending festivals that lined each outpost and warren carved into valleys of soft-ice, different from the hard-ice of the road or the snow-ice of the farms. His ears ached from the steady beating of the gungir drums and the occasional bellowing once the peasants straightened, the royal family having passed and the noblemen beginning. Jotnar were not known for their revelry—Loki knew his people to be a silent one, compared to those of Nornheim or, Hel forbid, the Asgardians—but when they did find cause to celebrate, they made more noise than was seemly.

Once every four years the nobles made this trip, the adults riding their litters and the children their three-toed nynkle elks. A boy held a garland of rare cavern herbs ahead of him, straight-backed and proud as he clung with his legs to the elk's thick red fur, which Loki had always found an eyesore. Jotunheim was blues and greens, muted colors. Nynkle elks were far too bright. Ahead of him rode Býleistr and Helbindi on one platform, Býleistr managing to look important and Helbindi only attempting to.

Loki ran his fingers through the fur of Litner, his dire-wolf, an import from Nornheim who looked at the moment particularly wind-stung. His eyes fell on Laufey, who had lost the Casket all those years ago yet still managed to look regal. The king puffed his chest so his ridges, exaggerated by dye, were read more easily by the crowd.

Loki's eyes skated over the farms they passed through. The algae fields that balanced his people's diet cast a strange glow over the faces of the thralls who tilled them. On the arching palanquin he rode, carried on the strong backs of noble warriors who had fought to curry favor with a prince, Loki was surprised that such a beautiful shade of green could come from such a base and common thing.

Loki sprawled amid his furs and splendor, watching the peasantry bow to him, the women with their woven dreadlocks tied with string and hung with bone amulets, babes slung over their backs, the men bald with their hands gnarled from years of labor.

None dared to do more than glance at the halfbreed prince from behind their eyelashes, once they realized his presence. Their hoes rested near the deeper furrows, uncertain as their owners.

Loki had little eye for any but the colors of the algae that would be harvested in but a few turns of the planet, cut into mats, dried, and turned into breads and stews, the coarser roots boiled until they came apart in a stringy mess, hardened into tough cakes that would feed the thralls and the animals alike.

Loki was pleased that this was the final day on this swaying litter, before the fawning masses. He looked forward to Utgard, the royal warren, and his own room with a smile.


	2. The Treaty

The royal warren where the women and the children lived, ate, and slept was sumptuously appointed, the wall-ice smooth and opaque, natural mirrors. Dug leagues down into the caverns below the surface-ice, the sorcerers' songs had crafted a truly beautiful maze. Loki was reading in his favorite frost garden, kept warm enough to grow plants in the midst of lumps of snow like downy feathers that was carted in early every morning and shaped, never the same images twice.

He had bemoaned the trip to his hangers-on in bored, sibilant tones, and then dismissed them to take a long, lasting scrub in the cool water of the bathhouses, deep in the heart of the warren.

A desire for solitude led him here, with the soft-snow curled around his toes, and Litner huffing wolfishly beside him.

Engrossed in the treatise he was reading, he knew nothing of the impending horror before his concentration was split by shouts of, "My prince! My prince!"

A haggard steward raced up, towering above Loki with his blue cheeks sucking in and out with caught breath, and sunk into a bow that was a finger's breadth too high to be proper for a prince. Loki would normally have had the man's hide for hours on end, but the steward looked like the hounds of Hel were chasing him, so Loki forgave him with merely a raised eyebrow.

"The Aesir are coming," the steward told him between pants, beckoning harshly at two servant women following him in a sedate run.

Loki was hurried into his iron war skirt by the chamber-women while the steward clucked. No sooner had his helmet been squared on his head than he was urged to an undignified run by the steward, who he left clasping his palms in worry, ordering a grim man-at-arms to accompany him to the courtyard. Litner took the running as a game, bounding and snapping at his master's heels.

There was tension in every smooth face he passed, the women and children evacuating deep into the warren and warriors in their skirts at every juncture, talking in low voices. He found his father seated on the ice throne with his head thrown back in what could only be fear.

Litner padded by Loki's feet as he came to rest behind the seat of his father's power. The wolf lay by his side, flesh burning Loki's shin slightly, tongue lolling in pants. They were loyal animals, dire-wolves, and Loki had raised Litner from a pup.

Something was amiss. It was all over his father's face, his brothers' squared shoulders.

The rainbow of the Bifrost shone in the distance, reflecting glaring colors through the grey sky. Surely such a sustained blast would be too much to carry just a handful of statesmen or soldiers.

Loki whispered into his brother's ear, "What news of Asgard brings them here?" and was surprised when pompous Helbindi, who could not bear to gain knowledge without flaunting his possession of it, merely shushed him. The worry of his kinsmen made Loki shift back on his heel. Litner, feeling his discomfort, settled his furry haunches on Loki's foot. Loki fondled his ears, tugging lightly, and listened as an arch collapsed in the distance.

They came to the very gates of Utgard, the sight of them nearly blinding Loki. The nynkle elks that Loki found so garish would be muted and faded before these warriors.

For the first time in his life, Loki felt a stab of true fear punch through his heart.

At the head of this hoard was a bearded, one-eyed man balanced astride an eight-legged beast with mad eyes, red as any Jotun's, and a sleek black coat. Loki had heard of the All-Father, of his evil and treachery, and was surprised at how small the actual warrior was, dwarfed by his steed. The differences in Jotnar and Aesir features were bewildering to Loki, raised in the heart of Jotunheim, but even then, Loki guessed that Odin was quite old for his race. Any feeling of comfort Loki could have felt from that was robbed by the sorcery that coated every inch of Odin's person. He shined brighter than fire, making Loki's eyes narrow and, to his shame, tears spill over his cheeks.

Beside him was a young man on foot, golden and fair as only an Aesir could be, wielding a war hammer whose strength was barely lessened by the great immensity of Odin's power. They were surrounded on every side with warriors, none of whom could hold a candle to these first two, all of whom were still frighteningly powerful.

Loki looked sideways at his sire. The tightness around Laufey's lips told him all he needed to know.

Their armor reflected light like sheer-ice, making a stab of pain slice through Loki's head. In front of their mouths rose clouds of vapor like the breaths of a furred beast.

Loki froze the tears and made them fall with a flicker of magic so he could stand firm behind his brothers, his fingers tracing the ridges in his legs.

"Laufey," Odin said. Some spell ensorcelled his voice, carrying it far beyond what should have been possible.

"All-Father," Laufey acknowledged, looking old and tired. "Have you come to wage war?"

"To prevent it," Odin replied.

The golden man by Odin's side jerked as if struck. "Father!"

"Silence, Thor," Odin said, his every movement a command. He never so much as glanced at his son. "You will forgive him." He spoke to Laufey again. "The life your men took was a great loss to him. A great loss to me." His voice broke as he said it, and suddenly the All-Father looked older and more tired than even Laufey.

Loki watched his father lean forward, a wolf scenting blood.

Odin saw it, and the anger that welled up on his face was nearly palpable, his strange Asgardian brow lowering thunderously.

"My youngest son is dead." He said it bluntly. "Your men killed him for no greater crime than being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Father," Thor growled, but he was cut off.

"If you atone for his loss, then I and my nation will mourn him in private. If you withhold tribute, however," his voice was now booming, the spell in full effect, "your lands will once more be ripped apart by senseless war."

Loki looked away from the All-Father, and then his breath stopped.

His father's eyes were not on Odin. They were not on the ground, or on either of his two brothers. That familiar red gaze was fixed speculatively on him, Loki, the youngest of his sons.

Loki opened his mouth to plead, but closed it. He would not shame his house. He would not.

"A son for a son, All-Father."

"Father, no." Loki couldn't stop the anguished exclamation, anymore than the night could stop from coming. Laufey silenced him with a gesture.

"My youngest, Loki, will serve your house in my stead."

Odin considered it for but a moment, and then smiled bitterly. "A neat trade. Very well," he said, ignoring the discontented mutters breaking out from the warriors he'd brought with him, the white look of anger on his son's face.

"Open the vault!" Laufey roared, and soon, under Laufey's direction, fine furs and gold, radiant statues carved of bone, and jewelry worked with beautiful gems were being piled on a litter in sullen tribute for the Aesir, who looked on with hatred and distrust.

Býleistr was watching Loki, muttering in a constant hiss into Helbindi's ear, his hands fisting as he tried so obviously to think of a way around giving up his favorite brother to almost certain torment and death.

Loki felt numb as the ice that separated throne room from courtyard was opened with a flex of his sire's powers, thralls directed by his father's steward walking past with armfuls of the greatest treasures Jotunheim possessed. He tried to catch his father's eye, but Laufey avoided his gaze carefully, sitting at a table of ice with three Jotun advisors and three Asgardians, drawing up the terms of the treaty.

They wrapped fine furs around Loki's shoulders. His helmet was removed so his short black hair could be braided behind him, fastened with ribbon inlaid with emeralds. A beautiful gold circlet was clasped to his arm. It was all happening too fast, far too fast, and Loki found himself panting. The tribute ended and the rough treaty was outlined, to be gone over in more detail in a later meeting. His father stood from the table and walked to Loki, his hand on his shoulder, collaring him and restraining him as much as guiding him forward, as if Laufey feared Loki would run. Loki refused to stumble, not allowing himself to stare up in awe when Odin remounted before him, his great beast pawing into the snow and snorting clouds of breath into the air.

"As of this day," the statue that had once been his sire said, "Loki is not a prince of Jotunheim. His death or torment at your hands will not be met with diplomatic action, as by all rights your son's has not."

"Father, please."

The man Thor glowered at Loki. The All-Father was impassive, unreadable, terrible to Loki's eyes. Laufey let go of his shoulder, and a warrior to Odin's left grabbed Loki's arm.

A growl ripped through the air, and the Asgardian let go with a shout of surprise when a force toppled him, snapping at his throat. A great spear smashed the dire-wolf away from its victim, who staggered to his feet, unscathed and proud.

"Litner!" Loki wailed, seeing Asgardian weapons drawn in a glittering circle around his sole, snarling defender. He shoved through the crowd and flung his body over the wolf's. "Leave him be!" Loki sounded every bit as ferocious as his pet. He eased back his weight when Litner's rumbling growl lightened to a whimper. He favored one of his hind legs.

"You may bring your pup," the All-Father said in an unexpectedly kind voice. "But you must carry him."

Loki shivered, and in the silence of the Asgardian host and his own men, hefted Litner's big body, careful with his hurt leg, and stood refusing to tremble before the All-Father and the hateful, distrustful glares of his men.

"We move out," Thor said, sounding disgusted. Loki carried the dire-wolf the short distance to a nearby ledge. He ran starving eyes over the hard-ice, the soft-ice, the cavern-ice, the snow-ice of his homeland even as the Bifrost opened and, in a wave of colors brighter than Loki could stand, he and Litner were sucked away to a fate unknown and frightening.


	3. Light

Loki scraped his knees as he collapsed to them when they arrived through the Bifrost.

It was so bright! He had never been in so much direct light, and he was blinded by it, a powerful spear of ache lancing through his head from his eyes. Tears leaked down his cheeks; he clutched Litner so hard the wolf keened in pain. He immediately eased up, the light powerful even through his clenched eyelids, and felt Litner wash his face with his tongue—felt but did not see.

Dimly, through his pain, he heard the Aesir laugh at his weakness. Shame pierced him and he bared his teeth like an animal. Someone wrenched Litner from his arms, and thick fingers, calloused and frighteningly strong, clawed through his scalp and took a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back with prickling lines of agony to expose his neck.

Something happened to his skin then. The heat cooled, until everything was still too warm but a much more comfortable temperature. His hair, so rare in Jotnar men, felt different, softer. Loki let a light pulse of magic show him the room, the crowded, wary Aesir and Litner whining and snapping against his hobbling with leather thongs, a muzzle being fixed over his snout.

The hand in his hair loosened from shock. "What sorcery is this?" a voice exclaimed.

"Laufey's son is half Aesir." This could only be the All-Father. He sounded much more tired than he had. "Bring him to a guest chamber. We will decide what to do with him there."

"No."

"Thor—"

"They murdered Balder! By the nine realms, father, how can you treat this bilious filth as our guest? I will lead our warriors back if this unfair recompense isn't dealt with properly!"

"You would betray the direct order of your king?" Odin sounded dangerous when he said it, so dangerous that Thor, the powerful golden man, said no more for a few minutes.

"If I do not spill the blood of one of those monsters, I cannot rest easy. Please, father."

At least there was reluctance in the bastard's voice when the All-Father finally, and to cheers, said  _yes_.

"Bring the mutt," Thor said.

The hand in his hair, now revealed to be Thor's, dragged him outside in a frog-march, and then tossed him by his hair over some soft, earthy-smelling beast's back, probably the horses he had read so much about. The pain, on top of what was burning from the light, was excruciating enough he screamed. Then muscular thighs spread next to him, and he rode somewhere he couldn't see, the world a mess of the animal's shoulder blades jerking against his chest, crushing out breath, and colors that were slowly solidifying to shapes behind his streaming eyes.

* * *

Hard thumps of the beast's hooves changed to sharp clacks against flagstones, and the scent the animal's coat was giving off multiplied by the thousands, entwined with the scent of excrement and grains Loki had only seen on Nornheim and in imports.  _Horses eat a coarse grass called hay,_ his mind supplied.

It felt unreal to be here. Loki had read about it so many times, this foreign place full of brutish people, and wished he could see the great architecture that paintings and drawings could never capture in full. Unfortunately, things were still hazy, though it was a little easier to see once they passed out of the direct light of Asgard's sun and into the stables.

The beast's leathery sides were leaking salty water and minerals, heaving with breath. Having once read a treatise taken from Asgard on the difference between Jotnar and Asgardian secretions, he knew the name of this too: sweat. Jotnar didn't sweat, which was the main reason he was surprised to be feeling dampness trickling down his back and collecting underneath his own arms, which, when he clutched himself, he found frightening.

They were soft as the finest silk, and his ridges were gone. The swirl that had led up to his elbow since his earliest memories was yielding and smooth. It felt foreign, and evil.

"What have you done to me?" Loki asked, his first real addition to the otherwise lack of conversation.

Thor snorted, now blurry but recognizable as himself. "You think I do not see your tricks, Jotun?"

"If I were tricking you, Asgardian, I would not be so obvious about it, believe me. You would never suspect the trick," Loki hissed in return.

"Treacherous little snake, aren't you?"

"Treachery against a porcine object like yourself wouldn't be worth the effort," Loki sneered.

In punishment, Thor gripped Loki's two wrists in one hand and yanked him unkindly past the muted browns of the stable, through a door and across a courtyard, Loki dizzy from the momentary sun, and then into a palace. Loki was marched down a series of wide, sumptuous halls hung with richly-colored cloth that swayed, as if from breath. It was littered with man-sized statues of precious metals—gold, silver, bronze—that were slowly gaining definition to Loki, lit by pots filled with fire. Most of the statues held weapons, unlike those of Jotunheim, where statues were primarily pictured in simple, day-to-day tasks.

Loki tried to catch glimpses of the stranger filling his space in the metal mirrors Asgardians put where a Jotnar would put wall-ice. He saw flashes of a pale white face and large eyes of a barbarian green, a halo of black hair pulled down into a short braid, and long, lanky, but still graceful limbs. Whenever the fair Asgardian and his strange captive passed a mirror, Loki dug his feet in to resist, bewildered by his appearance and wanting a better look, but was merely dragged, making him stumble over carpets and stairs. Servants passed him, kowtowing and staring. Non-servants, Aesir nobles or similar, bowed and watched the spectacle the two were making with baffled curiosity.

Though Loki was near Thor's height, his build was slight. Thor was pure muscle, and used it to his advantage, nearly dragging Loki's arm from its socket.

Loki was feeling distinctly petulant, his headache calming finally, by the time they turned around a bend where there were less people and walked through a door with guards standing at the ready outside, the first door since the entranceway they'd actually used.

This led to a comfortable series of halls and sitting rooms farther in. Thor knew where he was going, leading past cushy chairs and tables with carved feet of men and animals thoughtlessly, until they reached a locked door. The Odinson had its key. No sooner was the portal opened than Loki was hurled through it, almost falling flat on his face. His pride in his ability to catch himself was swallowed by his embarrassment for yelping and clutching at his right arm, which had let out a loud crunch from the force of the throw. His arm tingled unpleasantly to the fingertips, but it wasn't dislocated.

A rack of armor and weaponry, practice and otherwise, took up an entire wall twenty paces from the entry, which was only one of several doors in this room. Few books graced the shelves on the other end, which mostly held trinkets and fine statues from all the nine realms, including several Jotnar. Most of the books that there were had more to do with weaponry and battle than sorcery or statesmanship, Loki saw.

He turned, back straight, and faced his tormentor with pride that befitted a prince of Jotunheim.


End file.
